Conventionally, the ETC system for paying a toll fee of, for example, an expressway without stopping at a toll gate has been developed and implemented to a practical use. The ETC system uses a vehicle unit that is disposed on a vehicle and a road-side unit disposed around the toll gate of the expressway, together with other units, for reading a card ID from an IC card inserted in the vehicle unit and for transmitting the card ID to the road-side unit.
However, the settlement of the toll fee by using the ETC system cannot be performed if the IC card is properly inserted in the vehicle unit, that is, if the card ID cannot be read from the IC card. When, for example, the card user forgets to insert the IC card in the vehicle unit, the settlement failure occurs at the toll gate. Further, if the contact point of the vehicle unit is not working properly, the card ID cannot be properly read from the IC card due to the connection failure between the IC card and the vehicle unit. In those cases, the vehicle having the vehicle unit cannot pass the toll gate without stopping.
The present application has three previously filed applications that include at least one of the inventors in common. That is, a previous application No. 1 (Japanese patent application No. 2006-313377, also available as a publication of US patent application 20080056495) discloses a technique that stores a card ID generated in a server of a card company in the vehicle unit, and receives the card ID through a portable terminal and stored the ID therein. Then, the vehicle unit uses the stored card ID for processing data for the settlement of the toll fee. By using the processing scheme described above, there is no need to insert the IC card into the vehicle unit at the time of settlement of the toll fee, thereby providing a solution to the above problem.
Further, though the vehicle unit used in the previous application No. 1 may be prone to a problem that allows an illegal use of the card ID stored in the vehicle unit, a previous application No. 2 (Japanese patent application No. 2007-126934) discloses a solution for the above problem. That is, in the previous application No. 2, the vehicle unit sets the card ID stored in the vehicle unit to an inactivated condition when the vehicle starts its travel. Then, the card ID is set to an activated condition, according to an instruction from an activation terminal that is owned by a card ID holder or the like. That is, the card ID can be used for the settlement when put in the activated condition. In such an operation scheme, the card ID stored in the vehicle unit can be prevented from a use under a malicious intent.
Furthermore, a previous application No. 3 (Japanese patent application No. 2007-255128) discloses a technique that improves a user's convenience when he/she uses the vehicle unit disclosed in the previous application No. 2. More practically, the vehicle unit in the previous application No. 3 enables, for example, all of family members to use a single card ID stored in the vehicle unit in a sharing manner, by using an individual activation terminal associated to each of the family members.
In the above processing scheme, when the data processing for settling the toll fee in the vehicle unit generates settlement record information, the generated settlement record information is stored in the body of the vehicle unit. In such a vehicle unit, the settlement record information stored in the vehicle unit may be read through the activation terminal.
However, if the settlement record information stored in the vehicle unit is allowed to be output from the activation terminal without any restriction in the technique disclosed in the previous application No. 3, the holder of the activation terminal can obtain the settlement record information generated in association with other settlement that is performed by an owner of other activation terminal. The settlement record information is information that should not be disclosed/published to others without any restriction. That is, there should be some privacy protection measure implemented for protecting a privacy of the owner of the other activation terminal. Further, the owner of the activation terminal may possibly obtain unnecessary data processing record while obtaining his/her own settlement record, thereby leading to deterioration of the usability of the vehicle unit.